Samuel Lang Budin is a social documentary photographer living in Brooklyn and working primarily in the depressive realist mode. He makes 35mm and medium format slide shows about climate change anxiety, aging and death, naked people in their own homes, the personal discomforts of travel, and the encroaching sea. Just you wait!

Tracing environmental disaster, uneven development, and the externalities of global capital from the eastern shores of Lake Erie to the banks of Newtown Creek via the NYS Canal System, Paul Lloyd Sargent practices an embodied media archaeology atop piles of the debris of history.

Actor David Duchovny (!) says of Gerard Koeppel's new book: “ I’ve spent most of my life walking the straight lines of the world’s greatest city, and have never thought to ask: Is this a different shape from other cities, and if so, why, and who did it? Koeppel’s book answers these questions, in an easygoing, good-humored manner, with interesting facts unearthed on nearly every page. This is one of those books you always wished would be written, and here it is. Indispensable for anyone interested in the history of New York and cities generally, and bound to fuel cocktail conversations up, down, and across the city for years to come.”

Listen here for a whirlwind history of NY's grid as it develops!

Gerard Koeppel writes history, mostly New York related, but also in anything from magazines and journals to historical signage in city parks. He was also a captain of a charter sailboat, an awful law student, a licensed hack (out of a Greenwich Village taxi garage), and then, for many years, a radio reporter/writer/editor/producer, mostly with CBS News.

George Boorujy was born and bred in New Providence New Jersey, and now lives in Brooklyn, along with almost everyone else. He is represented by P.P.O.W. gallery in New York, and teaches at the School of Visual Arts.

Liz McEnaney is an urban historian and preservatioist who has worked in exotic locales such as Maputo, New Delhi, and even New York City! She co-founded BldgBlok - an app that provides tourists with location-based historic content.

Liz's latest restoration project is a big one! The SS Columbia - America's oldest excursion steamship - is making its way back to the Hudson River - listen to her tale of bringing the ship back to life!

Allison C. Meier is a Brooklyn-based writer focusing on the arts and overlooked history. Currently, she is staff writer atHyperallergic, and moonlights as a cemetery tour guide at New York burial grounds. These tours are focused on cemeteries as places of history, art, and architecture, as well as concerned in keeping our memorial sites visible for preservation and remembrance. At PechaKucha Night NYC Vol 16, Allison discusses these often abandoned and forgotten spaces right in the middle of our bustling city - reminding us the importance of slowing down.

Jessica Sheridan, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, is a Senior Associate at Mancini Duffy. She manages accounts for international financial and technology firms. Jessica is a NY Regional Representative on the AIA Strategic Council. She is passionate about Resilience and Placemaking.

Chris Wighton is a musician and adventurer from North Queensland Australia. Here Chris shares his experience travelling by Kayak from Cairns in North Queensland to remote Restoration Island in Cape York, Australia.